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Thermometer to control bread baking temperature in the oven

An adequate bread baking temperature is essential, from the moment the bread is slipped into the oven until it is taken out. This product is more delicate than you would think. It requires accurate control of time and temperature, from the time we mix the ingredients until they are finally baked. If you fail to take the appropriate care, the resulting dough will not taste good. This is why controlling baking temperatures is fundamental.

More so if we think about the wide range of breads there is. They all require different baking times, ingredients and temperatures. A loaf of homemade bread is not the same as ciabatta, so you need to be aware of what temperatures they need.

Main bread oven thermometers

Baking the bread: a crucial stage

Baking the bread is the final stage of the whole process, but this does not mean it is the least delicate. The dough goes through different phases during baking as its temperature increases. All types of bread go through various steps. The first one is the so-called gelatinization, which occurs when the inside reaches 60 °C. At this point, the starch in the cereal traps the water surrounding it and swells to form a gel, which will later become the crumb.

When the inside exceeds 60 °C, the proteins start to coagulate until the dough reaches 82-99 °C. By this time, the inside has finished baking. As for the crust, it is at the same temperature as the surrounding air, which caramelizes the sugars it contains. This process is called the Maillard reaction, in which sugars combine with amino acids and create the bread’s brownish roasted colouring.

This process starts at 130 °C and continues until the crust burns. This is why temperature must be controlled to prevent it from exceeding 250 °C. In fact, this is the temperature used to preheat the oven for almost all types of bread. By using temperature labels, this control can be carried out unassisted. Sticking the label directly onto the bread tray will suffice to check that the temperature reached in the oven was within the desired range.

Why do we recommend using a bread thermometer?

If you use a bread thermometer, you can monitor the temperature at all times. This allows you to bake the bread at an optimal heat. If the heat is too high, it will not reach the inside properly, and the final result will be a poor-quality bread; on the contrary, if the temperature is too low, the inside will not finish baking, and the crumb will be an inedible semi-liquid dough. For all of the above, we believe that having a bread oven thermometer is essential since it will enable us to adjust the oven to the required values.

As specialists, we encourage you not to take a chance when it comes to bread baking temperature. Around 250 °C is the most suitable, but you should gradually reduce it to 180 °C to achieve good results.